Who is Ronald E McNair?

The McNair Scholars Program is named in honor of Dr. Ronald E. McNair (1950-1986). His life represents values central to the mission of the McNair Scholars Program: intellectual curiosity and talent, a desire for knowledge and understanding, and dedication prevailing over disadvantage and discrimination in the service of graduate education and the greater good. The second African American to fly in space, McNair overcame astounding odds to earn a Ph.D. in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and to become an astronaut. Tragically, he perished along with other crew members aboard the Challenger space shuttle, January 28, 1986. McNair’s biographical data from the Lyndon B. Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas is available here.  (See also President Ronald W. Reagan’s address to the nation following the explosion of the Challenger and NASA’s recognition of African-American astronauts.) In January 2006, coinciding with the 20th anniversary of the Challenger explosion, a biography of Ronald E. McNair written by Carl S. McNair with H. Michael Brewer, In the Spirit of Ronald E. McNair, Astronaut: An American Hero, was published. The book was expanded and re-released in 2011, to coincide with the 25th anniversary.